Prairie Schooner

Monica Youn is a poet interested in the intersection between the beauty we want in life, and the darkness that often serves as an invisible barrier for it. Youn’s background in law allows her to probe and navigate these gray areas gently, using an economy of language that both cuts to the heart of the matter and reveals nuanced layers of caution, lust, and desperation. Her latest collection, Blackacre, is a masterful effort that examines the similarities between land and the body, estates and flesh, public and personal. In many ways, the collection reads like an act of magic or acrobatics, as Youn shapes lines and establishes unique connections to delicately scrutinize her own struggle with having a child, and how that struggle connects to larger symptoms of life. Extremely self-aware and generous, Youn spoke with me by phone to walk through some of the decisions that went into crafting such a stunning work. - Eric Farwell

My father suffers from a rare neurological disorder, and he's in pain every moment of the day. For most of his life, he was a proud working man, collar blue to the skin. He bought used pickups and changed the brakes himself. There were times he worked as many as four jobs. Today, he's on disability, and there's little else he can do than sit in his chair, feeling trapped.

And every Sunday, he watches football. He reads about The Dallas Cowboys during the week. He knows the names of the players and we talk about them when I call home.

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I prefer watching baseball on television rather than in the ballpark. I like seeing pitchers talking to themselves (Did he just use the f-word?) and batters high-fiving each other in the dugout. I enjoy observing the distorted faces of managers as they argue with the umps. Most of all I love viewing the players up close: the big-assed batters who look like short-order cooks, the wiry pitchers with Gumby-like arms, the players too short and skinny to succeed in most other sports. They’re clearly athletes, but they look like younger versions of my dad.  Their faces reveal a roiling sea of emotion I don’t often see in men in real life, at least not in the space of two and a half hours: anger, disgust, worry, hope, relief, vulnerability, gratitude, and elation.

You searched “boxing gym with nice showers.” You wanted to learn how to box, but only if you could do it early in the morning and shower before work. You wanted to learn how to box because you’re a woman and you’re not supposed to. You wanted to learn how to box because it’s like dancing but with fire.

This is New York City, so you found your gym. Chelsea. It’s an intimidating room: 40 hanging bags, low light, and loud music.  You signed up for a class, and it’s been your religion ever since.

First you jog a mile, to warm up: you need to run. Your father taught you that.

The class is 45-minutes of sweat. Old-school calisthenics, shadowboxing with hand-wraps, and 7 rounds on the heavy-bags with gloves. You learn the difference between speed and strength. And the exact length of a single minute.